Hermosa is full of hipsters? (Chicago, Lincoln: apartment, house, living in)

[Warsie]

Thanks for the info. But, AFAIK it was stated that the hipsters in Hermosa were hispanic themselves.

[Warsie]

Originally Posted by lenniel

So, let me get this straight.....
Hipster=wears skinny jeans, black rimed glasses, single track bike, facial hair, hangs out in coffee shops, complains about people who follow the trends, thinks they're artsy because they listent to a musician nobody's ever heard of, wannabe occupier?

People on anime forums have called people who have a slight knowledge of anime/watch some of the 'mainstream' anime and read a few visual novels hipsters....it doesn't help that there ARE hipsters who go to the larger anime conventions, and you can blatantly tell them out/detect they are hipsters........

[williepotatoes]

Originally Posted by ToriaT

good to keep in mind willie. What about Belmont Cragin? Are not there still some Polish areas around St. Hyacinth?

Toria, Belmont Cragin is a large area that has stayed commercially vibrant despite a deluge of gang infestation over the past twenty years. Unfortunately much of the housing stock shows it's age as you travel thru and there really hasn't been much new construction there the past few decades. I don't see BC making a comeback anytime soon. There are still nice stretches and pockets thruout this hood though, so I don't want to leave the impression that it's dismal.

The Polish presence around St. Hyacinth is withered. There's still some significant Polish businesses there and a decent population of immigrants, but most of it has moved west. The church is still going good and probably always will. St. Hyacinth is a "legacy" parish, where many Poles who have long since left area continue to attend mass.

[tompope]

Originally Posted by ToriaT

good to keep in mind willie. What about Belmont Cragin? Are not there still some Polish areas around St. Hyacinth?

Just to be clear, St. Hyacinth is not in or close to Belmont Cragin, of course.

[Hendu]

Originally Posted by williepotatoes

The next hipster I see in Hermosa, will be the first hipster that I have ever seen in Hermosa. And odds are that he will be running for his life with half a dozen 14 year old gangbangers in pursuit. Hermosa at night is not always a nice place.

People would have said the same thing about Logan Square, Humbolt Park and Pilsen 10-15 years ago. Yet when the 'hipsters' started moving in, the gangbangers continued doing what they always do...going after people who look like gangbangers and leaving the hipsters alone for the most part. They know that if they start messing with the non-gangbangers, the cops will come down on them HARD.

[tompope]

Originally Posted by Warsie

Thanks for the info. But, AFAIK it was stated that the hipsters in Hermosa were hispanic themselves.

Yes, and this of course goes to what I and others have mentioned throughout this thread, which is that this whole talk of where the hipsters are or aren't depends a lot on what exactly one considers a "hipster." For the most part over the past couple of decades, I think a lot of people would think of hipsters moving into a transitional neighborhood as the first steps of gentrification as being primarily or exclusively white and non-Hispanic. But in 2012, it's a lot more complicated than that. Chicago is a very multicultural place, and there are many young adults of all sorts of racial and ethnic backgrounds nowadays who could possibly be considered hipsters. So it's entirely plausible that there are some hipster-types of Hispanic ancestry present in the Hermosa area, but I would still hardly say that it's "full of hipsters" of any ethnicity.

[tompope]

Originally Posted by Hendu

I'm actually in the other wedge-shape area between the two sets of tracks (which act as great buffers to keep the neighborhood pretty quiet), on the Ken-Well Park side. It's not the official Belmont Gardens, but that name has been jumping the tracks lately (there's even a Belmont Gardens mural on the Ken-Well side of the tracks). It's technically the north tip of Hermosa, and Kelvyn Park falls under the Hermosa umbrella as well, according to official maps, real estate searches, etc.

The problem with these arbitrary neighborhood lines is the areas at the tips/edges get lumped in with one neighborhood when they're closer in distance and feel to the one right across the street. Like the wedge to the East of the tracks...they may be in another neighborhood according to the official boundaries; yet they're in the 31st Ward so how can they identify with Avondale when they don't even share the same Alderman?

Yeah, like we've been talking about, a lot of the neighborhood designations are pretty vague and arbitrary, and end up being mostly meaningless, especially around their edges. I agree that it's silly to treat the areas on either side of the pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks at Ken-Well Park as two different neighborhoods, even though they "officially" are.

I think it's interesting that, at least in my experience, the official names of most Chicago neighborhoods aren't actually used in everyday situations by actual Chicagoans very often, unless they're in the news media or the real estate industry, and I think that's largely because of that impreciseness of the boundaries. There are only a handful of Chicago neighborhoods (like Bridgeport, Englewood, Roscoe Village, Hegewisch, Uptown, etc.) that are distinct and specific enough that locals actually refer to them frequently. Otherwise, it seems to me that most Chicagoans simply refer to locations in terms of the nearest public park, public school, Catholic parish, or just a nearby major intersection. For example, when I was born we lived by Scammon School, and then we moved over near Montrose and Pulaski. That's a lot more descriptive and meaningful than weird, outdated neighborhood names like Avondale or Hermosa. And the City's 77 officially designated "Community Areas," based on research from the 1920's, are just ridiculous today, with names and borders that in many cases don't correspond at all to the way people really perceive the neighborhoods.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by tompope

Yeah, like we've been talking about, a lot of the neighborhood designations are pretty vague and arbitrary, and end up being mostly meaningless, especially around their edges. I agree that it's silly to treat the areas on either side of the pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks at Ken-Well Park as two different neighborhoods, even though they "officially" are.

I think it's interesting that, at least in my experience, the official names of most Chicago neighborhoods aren't actually used in everyday situations by actual Chicagoans very often, unless they're in the news media or the real estate industry, and I think that's largely because of that impreciseness of the boundaries. There are only a handful of Chicago neighborhoods (like Bridgeport, Englewood, Roscoe Village, Hegewisch, Uptown, etc.) that are distinct and specific enough that locals actually refer to them frequently. Otherwise, it seems to me that most Chicagoans simply refer to locations in terms of the nearest public park, public school, Catholic parish, or just a nearby major intersection. For example, when I was born we lived by Scammon School, and then we moved over near Montrose and Pulaski. That's a lot more descriptive and meaningful than weird, outdated neighborhood names like Avondale or Hermosa. And the City's 77 officially designated "Community Areas," based on research from the 1920's, are just ridiculous today, with names and borders that in many cases don't correspond at all to the way people really perceive the neighborhoods.

It really depends on the familiarity of the city with the person you're talking to. Because yeah, back in high school you could be very specific. A major intersection, usually.

But a lot of the Community Areas work very well by the time you're working full time in very mixed environments. Rogers Park, Edgewater, Lincoln Park, Lake View, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, Humboldt & Albany Park are just a few examples I could attest to where people still use the community designator in everyday conversation.

Avondale is admittedly a bit screwy - I blame the expressway slicing it diagonally. But it's making a comeback because frankly nothing else will stick, it is a unique area and can't be accurately lumped in with either Logan Sq or Irving Park.

North Center otoh has its work cut out for it, as it such a bizarre name to begin with. It's not really very far north, nor is it in the center of the North Side.

[Irishtom29]

Good post Pope.

When I was born we lived by Jackson and Kedzie in Lady of Sorrows. Now I live around Foster and California.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Good post Pope.

When I was born we lived by Jackson and Kedzie in Lady of Sorrows. Now I live around Foster and California.

You mean Swedish Covenant? Plenty of sorrows in the ER, which I can vouch for personally.